Unkown
by baby-kitsune9
Summary: Throttle had always been one of them. Their 'brother', their leader, their friend. However thanks to Limberger and Karbunkle, Throttle has gone missing. Can the mice find their missing bro? Or will they find something more? Modo/fem human Throttle fic
1. Chapter 1

What should I call this one?

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They had first been introduced to each other as children.

Vinny and Modo had been pulled from their homes on a school day and were taken to a military base by some of the adults where they were then taken to a holding cell, located on the far side of the base and had been stopped outside of a cell with a small russet furred mouse with nearly waist length long light brown hair, laying on a cot on it's side.

Facing away from them.

The small body had been missing fur in some places and was covered in bruises and wounds with dry blood on them. The little shirt and pants the small form had been wearing were tattered almost beyond repair and also stained with dried blood.

Vinny had started to walk up to the bars of the cell when a heavy hand on his shoulder stopped him as one of the adults said, "Careful son. That kid has gone through a severe trauma and no longer knows friend from foe. He's ripped out three soldiers throats already. And killed four more during transport for getting too close to him and trying to touch him."

Modo peered into the cell at the huddled little figure with a frown as he wondered, _Then why are we here?_

What reason could the military have for bringing them, mere children, here? "We brought you two here because we thought you might be of some comfort to him. Maybe bring him out of his funk and restore his mind to semi functioning order."

"How exactly are we supposed to do that?" Modo asked in a dark tone. Not liking the fact that the little one's wounds had obviously gone untreated.

Such cruelty was _prohibited_ among their kind because there were so few of them scattered here and there all over the planet. Allowing even one person who was wounded to suffer, was considered a mortal sin. And was punishable by death.

Yet something about the little one had the adults severely rattled. And somehow Modo got the feeling that it wasn't the fact that the kid had already killed some of their men.

No it was something else. Something that the adults weren't telling them. Modo made a _tsking_ sound as his tail gave an irritated flick as he turned to the pair of soldiers that had brought them to the base and growled. "Get me a first aid kit and stay the hell out of our way." If he and his brother were supposed to help the little one then they could be the most helpful _away_ from the men with guns.

The soldiers looked a bit pissed at being told what to do by some snotty little kid. Even if said kid was big enough to pass as a teenager at the age of ten.

But after Modo lost his patience and kicked them both in the head a few times the two all but scrambled to do as he asked while Vinny knelt down at the bars and made soft cooing sounds. While Modo took up a protective position behind his younger brother and waited to see what would happen.

At first nothing happened. The little one didn't even awknowledge their presence. But Vinny was a persistant little fella when he wanted to be and as it so happened now was one of those times. He kept speaking in low tones and cooing at the little one even as the soldiers returned and dropped the first aid kit on top of one of Modo's feet then ran away as if they were scared.

The grey furred youngling narrowed his eyes at the adult's retreating backs, and made a low almost growling sound then turned his attention back to the little one in the cell at the same time Vinny yelped and fell back against his legs.

Modo blinked down at his younger brother then glanced at the little figure crouched down on the other side of the bars, staring at them as a thin brown colored tail snaked out from between the bars, and wrapped around the first aid kit's handle a second before it was jerked through the bars and the little one retreated back to the cot.

_"Uh-huh."_ Modo said as if something had just clicked in his mind. Vinny looked up at his older brother with a funny expression as Modo tapped him on the shoulder and then motioned for him to get back out of the way. Vinny moved and got back up onto his feet as Modo knelt down and started talking. "You look like you've had a rough time of it."

The little one paused in opening the first aid kit and looked at him warily before reaching into the kit and starting to pull out some stuff. "You lost your family didn't you?" Modo asked. Again he got nothing but a wary look from the little one before it went back to work on pulling things out of the kit.

"And on top of that you were probably marked for experimentation by the soldiers here..." Which was entirely possible since the martian government was always looking for new potential soldiers. However the only draw back to this fact was that the ones brought in for experimentation usually suffered phychotic breaks, attacked their own kind, or even died while being experimented on.

This time Modo got a reaction. A low feral sounding growl escaped the little one as it peeled it's lips back from it's teeth. "They probably marked you as expendable because you have no family left..." The growling got a little louder and a little more angry. _Of course you'd be upset. Anyone marked as expendable would feel the same. Especially when their life would be thrown away as if it were nothing. _

"There's a way around that. If you were adopted that is." The growling stopped abruptly and Modo had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smirking. He'd always wanted a little brother/sister to balance things out at home. However he'd given up that dream ever since his and Vinny's fathers had died. "Our mom has an extra few rooms at home. We could talk to her and see if you can stay with us... You could be my little brother-" A soft growl was the little one's response and Modo chuckled softly.

"Sorry. Or my sister." The growling stopped again and Modo sensed movement more than he saw.

Whatever experiments had been done on the waif, it had sure made him/her fast. And he/she moved so stealthily, not even the tattered clothing he/she was wearing seemed to rustle. Modo looked down as the little one stood on the other side of the bars looking at him. The expression blank though Modo got the sense that the waif was somewhat hopeful.

After all who wanted to live and die in a cell? He slipped one of his hands through the bars, despite the fact that common sense told him that he might have it ripped off and thrown back at him, but even so he wasn't afraid. Something in the waif tugged at his protective instincts in a similar fashion to Vinny. "Would you like to come home with me and my brother? We could tell our mom that we found you and decided to keep you." He said half jokingly.

Surprisingly the waif's lips quirked a little bit as he/she reached out and took his hand in it's own for a moment. The touch was astonishingly gentle for one so unstable. _I guess that's a yes then. _"Vinny, think you can pick the lock on this cell?"

Vinny looked from him to the waif and looked a bit uncomfortable but nodded his head as he said hesitantly. "Yeah. Sure. No problem."

"Then do it." Modo said in an impatient tone as his tail flicked again.

The waif looked up at him from under it's long shaggy looking light brown bangs and Modo caught the smallest glimpse of cerulean blue that was so dark it bordered on violet just before the waif lowered it's head and broke eye contact. Probably to make himself/herself appear more timid than he/she actually was.

A tactic that probably helped the waif get the drop on the soldiers. But it wouldn't work on Modo or Vinny. There was a clicking sound, and the lock on the cell fell away and Modo felt the waif start to slip it's hand from his and made a low warning sound and tightened his grip on the smaller hand a fraction and said, "Don't even think about it."

The waif gave him a quick wide eyed look. As if silently asking how he knew it was planning something and Modo just gave his new sibling a knowing grin as he bent down a little bit so that he and the waif were eye to eye. "You can't get the drop on me kiddo. I've been ambushed far too many times not to be paranoid. But if you want to try your luck sometime then I'm more than up to the challenge... Now, are you ready to go home?"

The waif was silent maybe a little too long which Modo took as a green light to haul the kid outside of the cell and pick him/her up and grab Vinny and run. There was no way in hell he was letting the military take this kid again.

Ever.


	2. Chapter 2

They had found out that very same day why the little one had been taken by the military in the first place. One wouldn't have believed what they saw if not for the fact that both Vinny and Modo had seen what had happened with their own eyes when their mother had told them to go clean the kid up so that she could feed him/her.

The three had been locked in the bathroom, Vinny already shucking his clothes cause he just knew the waif was going to splash him. Of course this was a bit before water on their planet had become so scarce that they had found other means to bathe.

Still Modo had found Vinny's parinoia funny.

And on some level he sensed that the little one found Vinny's parinoia funny, curious, and somewhat distracting. Which was good since Modo had had to cut the waif's clothes from him and the kid needed a nice distraction to keep from noticing. But once the last of the clothes had fallen away Modo had froze for a moment.

His mind not truely registering what he was seeing at first.

Aside from the wounds and such littering the little one's body, he/she was frightfully thin, and on top of that... was the kids gender.

Not male. Well not exactly anyways. The waif had breasts. Small ones on it's nearly furrless chest and there was nothing between it's legs to indicate the male gender. Yet when Modo blinked the breasts vanished and a little thingy appeared between it's legs.

_Holy-_ The kid was a morpher! A bizzare cross between the martian species and an unknown, that was neither entirely male nor female until their body chose a gender to stick too.

Modo grabbed Vinny and his clothes and on a whim tossed him out of the bathroom and right into the hallway outside just as their mother was passing with an arm full of clothing. Modo heard his mother holler at Vinny as he took off running down the hall butt naked but ignored an otherwise amusing situation so that he could check out the waif again.

This time when he saw the breasts he couldn't help but put his hand over one to see if it was really there. He'd been taught in school that morphers were supposed to be exstinct. Bones and fossils of their kind had been found and dated back to the beginning of the martian race. Yet here was one right in front of him. The implications of this were not lost to him. Nor was the reasosns the military had taken the kid.

If a morphers abilities could be used to their full advantage then they could become anyone. They could do anything. They would waltz onto an enemy base and destroy it from the inside then walk back out.

The only true problem was that most morphers were _feral_ and had been recorded in martian history books as difficult to control. Which is why their civilization had fallen. They were simply too violent to be allowed to run wild and free.

Modo felt the little one starting to shake under his hand and pulled his palm away from it's chest. "Sorry." To be honest he'd completely forgotten the fact that he'd put his hand on it's chest to begin with. He'd been so lost in thought.

He knelt down so that he and the little one were eye to eye and decided to take measure of some of it's features to see which gender it was leaning more towards. He studied it's little face, noting that the muzzle was a bit shorter, the ears were smaller, it's bone structure was very petite and delicate.

"Hn. It looks like your leaning towards being a girl." He said after several moments as he reached out and put his hands on the little one's bare hips and used them to measure the span of it's hips.

Yup. It was leaning towards a girl. One with nice childbearing hips, his momma would say. Dropping his hands away from what he firmly dubbed a 'female' in his mind he smiled at his little sister and said. "My names Modo. You can call me Mo, Do, or Bro. You're choice. So...what's your name?"

The waif didn't answer. She merely stood huddled there, shaking a little bit. "Are you scared?" Modo asked curiously as she nodded her head.

She felt a variety of things at the moment. Fear, uncertainty- what if this person abandoned her to die like her mother had? What if this person called her a freak and beat her? What if he thought she was disgusting because her body wasn't like his own?

She made a whipering sound and started to cry quietly. She was one of the last of her kind and she faced an uncertain future. What if she had no place here? What if, What if, What if- She felt Modo wrap his arms around her and for a moment she had to fight down the urge to scream and bite and fight, thinking that he intended to strangle her. But when he made no move to do so she calmed a little bit and let him pull her against him.

"It's okay little darlin. I know how difficult it can be for someone who is different. Especally after what the military did to you but try not to think about it. You're free now. And ain't no one going to hurt you while I'm around. The same goes for Vinny and mom. They won't let anyone hurt you either. Now lets get you cleaned up so that you can meet your new momma."

She sniffled and wiped her face with one of her hands but didn't really answer as he picked her up and put her in the bathtub. She just curled her body so that her legs were drawn to her chest and her tail hid everything below the water's surface as he carefully scrubbed her clean of the dry blood and washed her hair and winsed her off before holding a towel out to her and excusing himself to go talk to his mom.

If they were going to have an morpher in the house then his mother needed to know what it might mean for them. After all he couldn't have his mother agree to keep the kid blindly. Not now anyways. Not when it could mean the military coming after her.

He had to warn his mother and make sure that they were ready just in case.


	3. Chapter 3

"A-A morpher!" Momma Maverick exclaimed in shock as she looked at the little one partially hiding itself behind her eldest son's back. The child flinched a little bit, taking her tone as a bad thing and quickly ducked out of sight behind Modo's back. Modo glanced down at the child and set a large hand on top of it's little head and ruffled it's hair gently. Affectionately.

Good god her son was already imprinting on the child. She could tell by the way he touched it that regardless of her wishes; it was too late to say no. The morpher would be staying in their home or Modo would hate her forever. She sighed and dropped down into the chair she'd pulled out upon Modo's insistance and buried her face in her hands.

It wasn't that she was narrow minded, or a biggot, or even a hateful person.

But a morpher, while similar to their own people in many ways, were also _different_ in many ways. Keeping the child, letting Modo and Vinny become attached to it would be a horrible thing to do since there was no guarantee that it would survive.

After all the scholars had theorized that the fall of their race had to do with illness, disease, physical deformities, mental deformities, breeding, lack of food, lack of water- There were so many factors and variables that she wasn't sure what exactly what to think or say.

All she knew was that her eldest son was already attached to the child and she had to keep it alive or he'd die mourning it. And to make matters worse it had been experimented on by their government, who all probably knew of it's existance and what it would be capable of once it matured. Which meant that they would be looking for it.

She looked at her eldest son who was now kneeling in front of the little one talking to it in low hushed tones and felt a surge of panic. If the military ever found the morpher, they would kill them for trying to hide it. For trying to give it a home and a family. "Bring the little one here Modo and let me see it-"

"Her." Modo said in an almost snappish tone before softening his voice back to normal. "It's a girl."

Mamma Maverick blinked at her son and wondered how he knew that as he stood up and took the little one's hand in his and led it over to her so that she could see it a little better. She sucked in a ragged breath as the faint light illuminated the child's features.

My, but it was no wonder Modo believed it to be a girl. It's features were distinctly feminine. The shape of it's head, it's build, it's height and development of it's body all practically screamed, _Female! _

She smiled at the little one, thinking how pretty she was going to be once she was older and asked softly. "Do you have a name?"

The child looked between her and her son with an uneasy look on it's little face and she felt her chest ache a bit as Modo said. "I don't think she has a name, mom."

"Well, first thing is first son, if she's going to stay here you need to refer to her as a he, him or bro. The military would have likely noticed that she's leaning more towards being a girl than a boy, which means that when they look for her they'll be looking for a _girl_. And it will be difficult for them to find said girl if she is disguised as a boy."

"Also morphers go through a certain period in their young lives when they spend a few months as wholly male then change once they begin to go through puberty, to female for their heat cycles. While she's a boy she'll need certain things. Such as grains and fruits to eat. The nutrients will help her when she goes into her heat cycle. And when she's a girl she will also need to be kept away from males for a while. But I'm sure that you and Vinny can scare them off."

"And since she'll be raised as a boy. She'll need a temporary male name. Some male clothing, and a male's education. Once she's settled in here, I want you and Vinny to take her out into the fields and teach her how to shoot and fight. She may need the knowledge later on." The words just in case went unspoken between Modo and his mother, but the young mouse got her point easily enough.

"Alright-" Modo agreed without hesitation earning a curious look from the child as she tilted her head back and looked up at him, her little ears flattened back against her head as Modo reached out and grasped a tuft of her long hair between his fingers. "I guess one of the first things in order is a haircut, then naming her, then getting her into some new clothes."

"I'll cut her hair-" Momma Maverick said as she started to get up when her son stopped her for a second. "Just don't cut it all off. Long hair is acceptable for our males so just cut it up to her shoulder blades. If it becomes bothersome later on as she gets older then we'll cut it shorter."

Mamma Maverick looked at her son for a moment then suddenly smirked and said half teasingly. "Modo, I never knew that you liked long hair on your girls." Causing her son to bristle to the point where his grey fur stood on end as he flushed and almost shouted.

_"That's not it!" _


	4. Chapter 4

Over the period of the next few weeks several things happened.

1) The little one was named Throttle Thornboy.

2) Her fighting lessons had started.

The first lesson had been shooting a military issue gun that had belonged to Modo's father before he had died. The lession started easily enough, after all, all Throttle had to do was shoot at a target.

She'd hit it several times then got distracted by a sand lizard which had gotten too close and was now crawling up her leg. Then everything went straight to hell. Throttle let out a frightened scream and started shooting at the little lizard and by the time Modo had gotten the gun away from her they had both been near hysterical. She because of the lizard that had frightened her so.

And Modo because he had thought that they would both be done in by her random shooting.

Needless to say he refused to let her shoot his father's gun again. And when asked by his mother why, all Modo could do was look thoroughly terrified and mutter something about needing to go do some random chore that didn't really need to be done.

3) She had started to go to school with them.

And because Modo tended to worry about her, he'd made the habit of sticking abnormally close to her, she had been dubbed Modo's lady. Which had caused many a school yard scuffle between Modo, Vinny and others stupid enough to say such a _suggestive_ thing to Modo's face.

4) And four, Throttle's after school lessons were going so well after a mere week that she could now out think (which wasn't all that hard if you observed the simple minded little tyke) and out manuever Vinny.

Modo clapped his hands together as soon as Throttle had Vinny down on the ground in a choke hold and smiled as she automatically let Vinny go and jumped back as he got to his feet growling in irritation. "Hey! How come I have to be the sparring partner for him?" Vinny asked in an irked tone. Already sick of being manhandled by a frigging girl.

The fact that said girl was his new sister/brother didn't make things any easier on him either. He kept getting confused. Was she a girl? A boy? A hermaphrodite? Modo and Mom had explained that Throttle was special, but that was about all he'd understood of their explanation about her-er him-er _whatever_.

Modo walked over to him and patted him on the shoulder, earning a glare from the pink eyed boy as he chuckled and said. "Because I can't train her. She needs someone her own size to work with and you just happen to be right for the job."

"Or maybe those dipsticks at school are right and she's your special lady." Vinny muttered and yelped as he suddenly felt his brother grab him by the shirt and toss him high into the air. Vinny landed on his back several feet away, gasping for breath as Modo called out in an overly chipper tone.

"Whoops. Sorry about that little man. Muscle spasm."

Vinny blinked his eyes several times and coughed as he rolled over onto his side, winching slightly at how much it hurt to move. _Muscle spasm my furry butt. _Vinny thought. As Modo turned his attention to Throttle and showed her a particularly vicious looking choke hold and then let her go and bent down to tell her that the hold was only to be used when she was in dire straits otherwise she would end up ripping someone's head off.

Once he was done he told Vinny in an authoritive tone to run into the house and grab the three of them some drinks since they had been at it for a while.

It was on the tip of Vinny's tongue to tell his older brother to go fuck himself but he was worried about what he'd do to him if he did. If he would actually throw him for muttering about the nature of his relationship with Throttle then there was no telling what Modo might do to him if he told him to go fuck himself.

Muttering under his breath about 'stupid brothers' and 'damned little sisters' Vinny slowly got to his feet and stuffed his small hands into his pants pockets and walked off before Modo could pick up a rock and chuck it at his head. Leaving the five foot three, twelve year old boy with their new sibling.

Modo waited until Vinny was gone before looking down at Throttle and gently laid a hand on one of her slender shoulders. "Don't pay any attention to him Throttle. He's just mad cause you can get the best of him-" Modo said softly as he shifted his hand from her shoulder to her mid back length hair which had been tied back at her nape for today's lessons. "I think that your doing rather well for someone with no basic grasp of hand to hand and other things."

Throttle looked up at him with an oddly blank expression and Modo wondered what she was thinking at that moment. She stared at him for several heartbeats then dropped her head and looked down at her feet and kicked at the ground a few times as his hand fell away from her.

It had been almost four weeks since she had come to this place and in that time she had started to assimilate and become one of the martian species.

Her face and ears and even her body had slowly begun to shape itself into something more mouse-like in form while she learned their culture, and lived among them. So far the military had left them alone. But she didn't think that would last long considering that her two siblings, Modo and Vinny were both very distinctive in both mind and appearance.

She doubted it would be much longer before the military came to the house looking for her.

A vivid image of blood red flames and bodies laying in various positions around her, flashed through her mind and she made a strained sound and dropped down to a squat and clutched her head.

The action didn't go unnoticed by Modo though he made no immediate move get close to her or ask her if she was okay. Whatever was bothering her was something that he couldn't help her with until she came to him specifically and asked for his help. But that didn't mean that he couldn't watch. And worry about her well being in the mean time.

"When Vinny comes back we'll take a small break then resume lessons." Modo said as he caught sight of Vinny comeing back towards them. Throttle's ears flattened back against her head a little as she slowly dropped her hands away from her head and stubbornly pushed the memory that she'd been recalling, aside somewhere in the back of her mind for closer examination later on, and slowly got back up.


	5. Chapter 5

After their short break Modo had decided to make sure that Throttle really understood what he and Vinny had been teaching her by acting as her sparring partner. It took longer than expected. And god knew how many times Modo visibly cringed when he wound up body slamming or throwing Throttle to the rocky ground at his feet and watched as she struggled.

Struggled to breathe. Struggled to get to her feet and continue.

He hated seeing a female in pain. Truly he did.

But he didn't have a choice in this either. If he left things completely to Vinny the lessons would be learned, but she wouldn't be able to _practice_ them well enough to get them down. Not only that but Vinny had a mean streak in him a mile deep. He tended to stop holding back at random times when he sensed weakness in his opponent.

He might really hurt Throttle if given the chance. And there was no fucking way in hell Modo was going to allow_ that_ to happen.

Still... He threw Throttle to the ground again and placed his foot on her stomach as he crossed his arms. She was wheezing, her lip was busted and he could plainly see that the strain of this sparring match was getting to her due to the fact that she was starting to cry.

"Are you ready to give up?" He asked for what must have been the millionth time, hoping that this time she would actually concede defeat so that they could call it a day.

However if there was one thing he had already learned about his sister it was that she was very stubborn. The more frustrated she felt, the more she wanted to fight. She took several deep breaths and calmed herself and he could already sense that that wasn't going to give in.

He felt his lips quirk a bit as she finally managed to get out from under his foot and slowly got back up to her feet and staggered a little bit. _Man, oh man. I'm not sure if I should let her keep going until she passes out or concede defeat myself. _Modo thought as she put her hands up and balled them into fists and started to move like he'd showed her a few hours ago in a style that was eerily similar to Earth boxing.

"Oh so that's how you want to play." He muttered as he put his fists up and started to shift from foot to foot in a bouncing motion. He didn't particularly like this style of fighting. Especially when teaching others. And the reason for that was because it caused too much damage to the person he was teaching.

In fact the first time he'd tried it with Vinny his little brother had wound up comatose for almost a week and to be perfectly honest, Vinny had been a little bit _off_ in the head ever since.

"Okay Throttle show me what you've got." Modo said as Vinny bristled where he sat, his white fur standing up on end as he pointed at them and all but shrieked.

"You can't use that fighting style on her! _You'll kill her!_"

"Mind your own business, Vinny." Modo snapped already mentally going over how much more he thought Throttle could take before she collapsed. Throttle kept stumbling and weaving off and on so it probably wouldn't take much for him to knock her out. He just had to restrain himself enough to keep from doing any lasting damage.

He was pretty sure that he could manage.

After all, he'd practiced after the Vinny incident just to make sure that he could hold back. So this situation wasn't entirely unlike that one. With the exceptions that the person he was up against was a female, and was also much more fragile than his brother was.

Throttle moved to charge him and he ended the sparring match with a well placed open palmed hit to her stomach. She coughed as her small body doubled over, blood and vomit coming out of her mouth and hitting the ground at his feet as her eyes fluttered closed and she went totally limp. Modo gripped her by the belt around her hips and carefully picked her up and settled her over his shoulder and used his other hand to rub her back soothingly and looked at Vinny.

"Alright kiddo. That's it for the day. Head inside."

Vinny jumped down from the boulder he'd been sitting on since their break and looked at Throttle with a worried expression on his face causing Modo to sigh again. Great now his little brother thought him capable of cold blooded murder. He was never going to live this down, was he?

"Throttle is fine Vinny. She's just exhausted and in need of rest."

"But you punched her!"

"No. I only made it look as if I punched her. I merely used the palm of my hand."

"But-"

"No 'buts', Vinny. She's fine." Modo said firmly as he pushed Vinny towards the house as he said gruffly, "Now go on to the house and take a shower and get ready for bed. Throttle will need a bath too before she's put to bed so I need you in and out before I get to the house."

Vinny looked as if he wanted to argue for a moment but then nodded and ran towards the house. The second he was out of sight Modo sat down on a large rock protruding from the blood red soil and carefully settled Throttle in his lap so that he could take stock of her wounds.


	6. Chapter 6

Modo waited a good twenty minutes before finally standing up and heading for the house with Throttle in his arms, hoping that Vinny was already out of the shower since Throttle needed a bath and to have some of her injuries treated too.

He was amazed that he hadn't broken any bones during her lesson. Though he had held back as much as he possibly could to refrain from doing any serious harm to her. It didn't change the fact that he knew how dangerously close he had come to doing serious harm. He was after all five times her height and had close to a hundred and ten pounds of pure muscle on him.

And she was just so damned small and fragile looking.

He stepped into the house as quietly as he could and listened to the sound of his mother humming, something that she only did when one of them was being tucked in for the night and smiled slightly as he made his way upstairs.

He paused just outside of Vinny's bedroom and peeked in and saw his mother sitting on the edge of Vinny's bed lightly running her fingers through the white furred mouse's hair as he lay on his side facing away from her.

His small body curled up under the covers.

Modo wanted to interrupt and ask his mother if she would bathe Throttle but after seeing her like this he found that he couldn't begrudge her a little bonding time while putting Vinny to sleep. So he'd just have to bathe Throttle himself.

Which wasn't going to be all that difficult, despite his discomfort at seeing her naked again, especially considering that she was dead to the world at the moment. He could wash her hair and put her in one of his shirts then tuck her into her bed before seeking out his own.

He carried Throttle down the hall and slipped into the bathroom and kicked the door closed then set her on the counter and used his tail to hold her upright when she started to slump over to the side a bit while he grabbed a towel for himself and her. Then turned his attention to undressing her.

After doing such things with Vinny and his other sibling, Modo had grown accustomed to undressing and redressing his siblings after their baths. _Practice for the future- _His mother often told him teasingly, leaving him somewhat clueless about her meaning. _Practice for what? _He found himself wondering again as he deftly tugged Throttle's shirt from her pants and then unbuttoned the front and paused when he noticed the thick soft brown colored fur that had grown in where she'd had bald spots before.

Her whole chest and stomach was covered in it. So was some of her shoulders and arms. Her neck and the underside of her chin. _Fascinating- _When had this started to happen? He wondered as he used his tail and one hand to hold her up while he slipped one of his hands along the downy soft fur that was starting to cover her body.

He had noticed that her features were more mouse like recently. Her ears, eyes, muzzle- hell, even her tail had changed a little bit. Becoming more and more like his own. Her body was also becoming more and more distinctly female. It no longer changed gender at random. So it appeared that she had been excercising more control over her abilities to better blend in.

Knowing this made him immensely _proud_ of her. She had come so far in such a short time. How could he not be proud of her?

He slipped her shirt off of her then used his tail to lift her up so that he could slip her pants from her legs. Hn. Her body was not only becoming more and more like a mouses but her muscle definition was becoming more like theirs. Her slender, and lithe body was becoming more graceful. Less clumsy.

Her limbs were a bit longer, the build more defined.

She was going to be beating males off with a stick when she started to go into season. Modo thought wryly as he slipped her pants completely off and then tossed them and the shirt into the laundry hamper then quickly turned the water in the bathtub on and stripped his own clothes off. Then picked Throttle up and climbed into the tub and settled her inbetween his legs so that she was resting against him.

He stretched his legs as best as he could in the cramped tub and sighed as he leaned back against the side and picked up the soap and started to carefully run it over Throttle's fur. Starting at her neck and shoulders then working his way down to her arms and then her legs (but only below the knees) Anything higher would just be weird for him.

Once he was done with that he held her as close to the spray as he could to rinse her off before going to work on her hair. It took a little while because he washed her hair three times and was about to start on it the fourth time when he caught himself and made an strangled sound. Just what the hell was he doing?

Her hair was clean. So why did he feel the need to wash it again? He didn't get it but he forced himself to stop anyways. Besides he needed to clean himself up before the warm water ran out.

He shifted so that Throttle was off to the side a bit and quickly cleaned himself up then rinsed off and turned off the water then stood up and grabbed one of the towels that he'd pulled out earlier. And used it to Wrap around his waist, tying the ends into a knot so that it wouldn't fall off before grabbing the other towel, and using it to scoop Throttle up out of the bathtub.

He shifted his hold on her a bit so that he could wrap the towel corners around her to preserve her modesty and headed for the door and stepped out just as his mother was passing by. They both paused, he with an blank look on his face and his mother gave him a knowing smirk before walking on.

Frowning at her back, Modo scratched his cheek with his one free hand and looked down at Throttle, carefully cradled in his arms, her head resting on his shoulder. Just what the hell had that smirk been about? And why did it disturb him so?


	7. Chapter 7

Several months passed and the military came by four or five times, always asking questions about where their little morpher could be.

And every time they came Modo made sure that Throttle and Vinny were hidden upstairs in the small panic room that was more like a bomb shelter built into their house. The same room he and Vinny used to play in as little kids.

However there was one time that Throttle was seen by one of the soldiers who promptly demanded to know who she was and why they hadn't seen her before. Momma Maverick had been on the brink of panicking when Modo smoothly and calmly shut the soldiers down and introduced Throttle as his younger brother, whom had a weak body because he'd been born sick.

Momma immediately sensing that it was the only out that they would get- agreed with Modo and told the soldiers that Throttle had been born with a low survival rate and as such, she kept him close to home where she could take care of him.

Still the soldiers were suspicious of their Throttle and even went so far as to try and kidnap her once while she had been walking to school with her brothers and wound up with Vinny instead.

Although how _that_ had happened exactly Momma Maverick would never know.

All she knew was that after Vinny had been grabbed Modo escorted Throttle back to the house looking mighty P.O'd, and grabbed his father's gun. As well as a military issue knife and told her that he was going hunting and that he'd be back by dinner time as he slipped out the door.

Momma sat there with Throttle, going about her daily routine while trying to reassure her daughter that everything would be okay. But Throttle didn't believe her. Which was fine, she supposed. She was a terrible liar anyways and her fears were plainly showing in her expression and her actions.

Luckily, despite being more jaded than a child should be- Throttle was made of sterner stuff than she was and in the end it was she who tried reassuring Momma Maverick that Modo wasn't the type to break his promises.

Finally about the time Momma Maverick finished cooking dinner and was starting to set the table, the front door opened and Vinny came running in looking a little bit roughed up and latched onto her waist with his arms and his tail and started talking a mile a minute.

"Mom, your never going to believe what happened! Modo shot twenty soldiers- sniper style, down _THERE,_ from the ridge overlooking the base and then snuck into the base and took one of the higher ups prisoner! And he even stabbed him with dad's knife to show that he meant buisness and- and-"

Momma blinked at her white furred son and wanted to ask where her eldest son was but she couldn't get a word in edge wise. Just what did he mean by Modo aimed 'there'? But most of all she wanted to know where her other son was.

Worriedly she looked towards the front door which was still wide open and noted that Throttle was standing there, peeking around the corner. Her tail twitching a little bit at the tip as her ears flattened against her head as she stood there, seemingly waiting.

Finally after a moment or so Modo's mussed, shirtless, dust covered grey form walked through the door with his fathers gun slung over one shoulder and his knife hanging from his belt. Modo looked across the room at her as he patted Throttle on the head and smiled.

"Hi mom." He said happily as he gently shut the door before striping the gun and kinfe from his person before scooping Throttle up in his arms and walking over to Momma Maverick and kissed her on the cheek. Momma Maverick breathed a small sigh of relief and kissed her son on his cheek before he could pull away, earning a scowl from him to hide the flush under his smokey grey fur.

"I'm glad that your home son."

"Yeah, me too." Modo said awkwardly as he set Throttle down in a chair at the dining room table and then walked into the kitchen to wash his face and hands. He'd meant to wash them before coming in due to the little bit of dried blood on his hands but had forgotten that the lake that he and Vinny used to play in had started to dry up, leaving nothing but mud in the wide crater like space.

So the kitchen was as good a place to wash as any.

"So how did you get away?" Momma Mavericks curious sounding voice asked from somewhere behind him. Modo turned his head a little bit and looked at her, he hadn't noticed before but his mother's eyes were red rimmed.

"Have you been crying mom?" Modo asked as he turned off the water and turned to face his mother.

"Isn't it a mother's job to cry when she might not see her sons again?"

"You're evading the question." Modo said in a tense tone, strongly disliking the fact that his mother had been sitting here crying for him and his idiot brother.

"So are you-" She pointed out softly before asking again. "So how did you get away?"

"I found a series of secret abandoned tunnels that run under the base. I used those to move from one place to another and to even enter the base and capture one of the higher ups."

"If they saw you-"

"They didn't. And even if they did, they currently have twenty men who will all permanently be singing in soprano." Modo said with a cruel smile before shrugging his shoulders and saying cheerfully. "Besides, I'm planning to go back every day for the next month and put the fear of god into them for messing with _my_ family."

Momma Maverick gaped at her son for a moment before he placed his fingers under her chin and gently closed her mouth then brushed past her as she thought, _Oh my._ Those poor soldiers were all going to be reduced to bundles of nerves before Modo was through with them.


	8. Chapter 8

Later that night when the house was quiet, Modo lay in his bed wide awake listening to the sounds of Vinny's snoring coming from down the hall and going over the events of the day. As usual, Throttle's room was as silent as a grave. Modo wondered if she was actually sleeping in the room or perhaps sneaking out after everyone suppossedly went to sleep.

He doubted that she would have snuck out tonight if that was true due to the fact that she had been out cold after her lessons again when he had put her to bed. He rolled over and closed his eyes and tried to drift off when he heard the faint sound of his bedroom door opening.

Thinking it was Vinny he automatically rolled over and grabbed the small cup of water that he kept on his bedside table and held it out to the small figure half cloaked in shadows.

"Here Vin. You can drink this but then you go back to bed." Modo said softly as the figure crept a little bit closer until he saw pale brown fur. Modo's brows furrowed as he vaguely made out Throttle's form standing just a few feet away from him.

"Throttle? Sweetheart what's wrong?" Modo asked in an alarmed tone as he quickly sat up. Throttle hesitated for a second then moved the remaining distance to his bed then slowly, as if she were afraid he'd lash out with his tail or his leg, crawled onto his bed. He felt one small hand fumble around until she located his tail then placed the same hand on his leg, close to his upper thigh as if she were trying to hold it down.

And he felt a strange tightness in his chest. Today's events must have affected her more than he had thought considering that she hadn't _looked_ or _acted_ worried or scared before. But then she never looked or acted worried or scared.

Throttle worked her way up the bed to where he was sitting and put a hand against his chest and _pushed_. He didn't budge an inch. He was too curious about what she was doing to even bother moving.

She pushed against his chest again and he blinked at her as she got a frustrated look and rasped in a low husky sounding voice, "_Lay down_." He blinked again, this time in shock before grabbing her by the waist and laughing in a low tone.

"Hey, you just spoke! Say something else!" He said excitedly as he lifted her up into the air over his head. She flushed under her fur and flattened her ears back against her head and gave him a narrow eyed look.

She hadn't wanted to speak in the first place but he hadn't been cooperating with her when she pushed against his chest. And she certainly didn't like being hoisted into the air like she was at the moment. The tip of her tail twitched in irritation and she gripped the fur of his wrists and tried to supress the tremor that ran along her spine.

Modo noticed the tremor and automatically lowered her so that she was straddling his lap and let his hands fall away from her waist. If she was scared of something then he should be more aware of what he was doing. Especially since the slightest error could cause her undue distress. "I'm sorry Throttle-" Modo said gently as he lifted a hand to thread through her hair.

Letting the silken strands slip from between his fingers so that they fell back into place around her face, nape and shoulders. "_Lay down_." Throttle said again, her tone a tad bit impatient this time. Modo hesitated for a second then scooted himself over a bit and lay back down. Allowing Throttle to slip from his lap and flop down on the bed beside him where she curled up on her side against him and huffed softly.

"The incident today rattled you huh." It wasn't so much a question as it was a musing to himself. Throttle didn't say anything. But then again she didn't have too. Modo knew more than anyone that she would never admit to being scared. Her impassive, cool and calm demeanor was a constant source of awe to him and Vinny and their mother.

Still it didn't help him wondering why she had decided to climb into bed with him since she never had before. So it was pretty easy to assume that she had been rattled. Or was at the very least upset despite the fact that she showed no outward signs of feeling anything.

He drew the thin blanket on his bed up over her shoulders and placed his hand on her side as he rested his head on his other arm since she had snatched his pillow from him around the time she'd flopped down and got comfortable.

He could feel Throttle's stready shallow breathing and smiled in the dark. _This girl..._ She would drive a saint mad. He mused as he closed his eyes and let himself drift off.


	9. Chapter 9

Ok, quick update on what's happening now then I'll write some more Unknown.

The hospital fucked up royally and _literally_ killed Velma. (my childhood best friend's mom) Her heart stopped, and for a while they couldn't get her back. Robin (my friend) had to be sedated, heavily, because she couldn't stand seeing her mother dead in the ER.

So finally the doctors managed to get Velma's heart to function again. However she was unable to breathe on her own and suffered some brain damage. She was in the ICU for almost a week and Robin has decided that since her mother is going to die anyways that she'll get her out of the hospital and bring her home.

Where Velma will die.

I've been asked to go to the house and help with Velma just in case Robin needs to go to work or something. So I'll let you know when I start that. But I got to see them both today and Velma was really out of it and tired easily so we left after a few minutes so that she could rest.

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A few years later-

Modo had gone to a cave with Vinny and Momma Maverick after the first siren had started to blare it's warning. Startling the whole household from a dead sleep just in time to escape before their house- for reasons that were still unknown to them- went up in a maelstrom of red orange flames and posionous gases.

Momma was sitting over in the corner, crying about the loss of their home, while Vinny knelt down in front of her trying to comfort her while Modo stood at the enterance of the cave, peering out into the suddenly baren wasteland that had once been his childhood home. Wondering where Throttle was and if she was okay.

She hadn't been in bed with him when the siren had started blairing so he could only assume that she was somewhere outside the house when it went up. But with all the posionous gases being released into the air from under the ground, he had no idea if she was still alive and kicking or dead.

The wind suddenly kicked up and Modo hissed and yelled, "Gas masks! Now!" As he grabbed the mask that he'd lain down a little while ago and started to put it on when he heard the distant screetch of metal before something large and metalic hit the ground somewhere beyond the cave.

He slipped the mask on and grabbed his pistol and tossed it to Vinny then grabbed his father's gun and checked the amo. The crystal chamber was still good for another few shots but after that he'd have to find a new focusing crystal or the gun wouldn't work anymore.

He clicked the chamber closed and glanced over at his brother and mother to make sure that they had listened and were wearing their masks. _It's a man's duty to protect what is most precious to him. _And that crash couldn't have been just anything. No, by now Modo had figured out that there was something serious going down and since he and his family no longer had a home and one of his siblings was MIA then he needed to go and see if the crash site could yield some answers.

"Momma, Vinny, I'm going out to see if I can find anything to help us figure out what's happening. You two stay here-"

"Wait! What about Throttle?" Vinny asked with a somewhat panicked look on his face. Modo gave him a blank look, for once at a loss about what to say.

"If she's out there and alive...I'll bring her here." Modo promised before saying sternly. "You just shoot and kill anything that you don't recognise as me or Throttle. Got it?"

"But what if Throttle comes back and I accidentally shoot her?" Vinny looked like he was about to cry. Modo knew what he meant, he'd be stupid not too. After all Throttle was a morpher. What if she had changed her shape to survive the present conditions?

"Listen to me Vinny, Throttle isn't stupid enough to show up in a form that your likely to shoot. If she comes here, she'll come in a form you recognise." Modo said as he walked over to his mother and younger brother and quickly gave them both a hug, thinking that this may be the last chance he ever got to do so then quietly made his way to the mouth of the cave and boldly stepped out into the open and started walking.

He took several steps away from the cave and felt the ground shake violently under his feet, causing his heart to leap up into his mouth and his stomach to twist into knots as he looked back at the cave. It looked like it was still in one piece- which was good considering that he doubted that he'd like what he found if the cave had just collapsed on his family.

Being the next to the last of the Maverick clan wasn't particularly something that he was looking forward too. Still... He saw Vinny peek out of the cave and sighed in releif. They were okay. _For now. _His mind whispered, forcing him to turn away and move onward despite the fact that he wanted to go back _desperately_.

He needed answers about what was going on before something else happened to his family.


	10. Chapter 10

Throttle had known something was going on before anyone else in her family. She had heard the high pitched distant whine of ship engines during her fighting lessons that day. And later on had crawled into bed with Modo with the intention of sneaking out because the whining sounds were getting louder.

She stepped outside of the quiet house and walked a little ways into the yard and stood there for a moment watching the sky. The whining was getting louder, the sound piercing her mind and dragging an old memory to the surface.

_Flames. Bodies. Unimaginable pain- followed by the keening wail of a small child as she sat on her knees next to two prone and unmoving bodies, crying. _

_"Mommy! Daddy!" Small hands reached out tentatively and touched one then were jerked back smeared crimson as someone came running up behind her. _

_"Get up!" The voice said urgently as one of her upper arms was grabbed and partially dragged up. But her legs refused to work. "Get up!" The voice said again, this time more fiercely. _

_"Mommy... Daddy..." She sobbed as she strained to get back to where she had been. She heard a disgusted snort and felt something hit her cheek hard enough to sting and force her head to the side as the person holding onto her arm snarled. _

_"Dammit, youngling, they are dead! You cannot bring them back to life. Now move it. Or do you want to die here? Like they did?" She sniffled and looked back at her parents with tear filled eyes, noting that their bodies were cleaved in half and thought about what the elder had just said to her. _

_No. She didn't want to die here. Not like they had. _

_She wanted to live. Become an adult. Have younglings of her own- that had always been her mother and father's dream. _

_She felt the elder holding her arm tug on it and gritted her teeth and forced herself to her feet. She looked up at the elder for a second and saw him give her a sad smile before saying. "All will be well little one. I'll not let anyone hurt you." _

Several months after the attack on her people, the elder had gotten seperated from her in a martian city and she never saw him again after that. Though she did look for him. In fact that was what had brought her to the martian mice's attention in the first place.

But she would never forget the sound of the engines that had brought about the demise of her flesh and blood. Her eyes flashed from blue violet to crimson as she felt her body contorting along her shoulders, and spine. Her fingernails lengthened to talons as the skin of her back split apart and large blue scaled wings ripped free.

A few seconds later she was climbing up a vine that ran along the far side of the house and hoisted herself up onto the roof and spread her wings. If the same people that had killed her family were here- then her new family was in _danger_.

Driven by an deeper instinct that she didn't understand, she took to the air and headed towards the whining sounds. Ten minutes later she saw three ships armed with blasters, each one seperating and heading into different directions. One of which whizzed by her and headed towards the house. Worried that her family might be in more danger than she had initially thought, she flipped herself around in midair and followed the ship.

It dove and Throttle instinctively folded her wings and let herself free fall through the air. Her sight dimmed for a moment, her hair whipped around her face with so much force that it raised welts along her cheeks, neck and shoulders. The ship pulled up.

And Throttle unfolded her wings to slow her descent as she reached out and used one hand to dig her talons into the side of the vessel as it started to pass her again. Lurching painfully, her shoulder and arm feeling like there were about to be ripped off as she dug her talons form her other hand into the ship's side and started to climb up.

She reached the top of the ship and noted automatically that this wasn't a normal martian ship. It was far too small, and the design was off. It had far too many weapons too. She'd already counted nine different types. Three of which were disintegrators. To her knowledge martians didn't have such weapons.

The technology needed for such weapons was simply far too advanced.

The ship's weapons moved, startling her almost to the point where she let go of the ship. But not before she saw what it was aiming at. A second later a siren blared and Throttle made a low growling sound as she started to rip pannels off of the ship. The ship started to lose a bit of elevation and she paused in the middle of ripping off one of the guns and looked down.

Her family was outside of the house, a good fifty feet away from the house when one of the other guns went off and there was a loud **_Fwoom_** as her home went up in red orange flames. Bits and pieces of burnt toys and clothing and glass raining down from the sky over where the house used to be as a purplish mist wafted up from the ground.

She saw Modo herding Vinny and Momma as fast as he could towards the hidden shelter in one of the caves in the hills over a mile or so away from the house. Throttle watched him pull his shirt collar up over his nose and heard the faint sound of his voice barking out the order to try not to breathe too much, that the air in that area was turning toxic, as she ship flew over their heads.

Sniffing at the air, as the ship flew through, Throttle inwardly cringed at the strong smell of oily decay reached her nose. Modifying her body a little bit to give herself lungs that could breathe the posion without being too affected by the fumes and made her way closer to the cockpit. And then lengthened one of her talons into a massive claw the length and width of her forearm and searched the cockpit through foggy glass.

Looking for the pilot.

She caught a slight movement from within and with a grim smile plunged her claw down through the tempered glass and was rewarded by a spray of crimson as her claw sank into flesh, bone, and then the soft tissue of the pilots skull.

Satisfied that the pilot wouldn't be of any further trouble she dislodged herself from the hull of the ship and let herself glide down to safety as the ship crashed.


End file.
